From what my sister told me (food scientist), humans have two genetic "hunger" traits that may help explain things. The two are fats and sweets, and it's pretty easy to understand:

Think about the "hunting and gathering" done long ago. The men hunted animals (fats) and the women and children did "gathering" (nuts, berries, and the like).

So why do most people like fatty things and sweet things? It's genetic..........

I take a high quality Omega 3 supplement and try to eat fish 1-2 times a week. It has helped my digestion and general health a lot.........

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What is your understanding of the "caveman diet?" Why do you dismiss it?

I had entered a comprehensive response, but the friggin buggy system here logged me out in the middle of it and lost it. So, here's the short version:

All we know for sure is that our metabolism can handle a wide variety of nutrients. We don't know much about the selective pressures that helped us develop the cool system, but we can be pretty certain that "long healthy life without heart disease" wasn't one of the selective pressures.

The insulin response to carbs is part of a well-working system. The problem only surfaces after long-term bathing of cells in insulin. Our body tries to adapt in it's response, but it blows it, and we die of slowly declining health.

IMO, The Caveman Diet just encapsulates this and transforms a lot of particular things into one big thing: "It wasn't long ago that our ancestors were eating caveman style, so unless you have good evidence that something you are doing is better for your health and longevity, don't stray too far from their way of eating and living, as best you can fold it into modern life." Don't feed a wolf bird seed, and don't feed man something that his genotype never adapted to eating.

The other good thing about caveman is that it is more socially attractive that a lot of finicky eating prohibitions, which I would likely reject just on general esthetic principles.

Ha

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I get a little uncomfortable with reducing the theorzing about our evolutionary diet to calling it the "caveman diet." That's a popular press bastardization aided and abetted by some books by non-scientists who have tried to capitalize on the research with knock-off books and articles. Paleo (ancestral) diet impications are a work in progress and validate the concern over ruining cellular response to insulin with an over abundance of cheap (relative to physical exertion) carbs. The evolutionary approach to proper diet is a critically important field of research. It's an empirical antidote to all of the popular press bs which is most often fueled by press releases for half-as'd books or, worse, relentless campaigns by deep pocket industries (soy and grain, eg). Google names like Loren Cordain, Ron Rosedale and Arthur Devany to get a take on evolutionary diet issues that are abstracted for the general public.

It's too bad SG isn't around any more. I think he was the only anthropologist on the site. But my impression is that we don't really know a lot about how our early ancestors lived. We don't even know if they were really hunters. They might have been scavengers. Either way, they probably ate a lot of raw meat teeming with bacteria, and I'm not doing that even if you tell me it's good for me.

The idea that eating fat and cholesterol is related to heart disease seems reasonable on the surface. Plaques are basically oxidized cholesterol, so it doesn't seem like a huge leap to say "Ah ha! Don't eat cholesterol!"

And, frankly, I am still subject to the "brain-washing." I spent years eating a low fat diet. I used to visualize hamburger grease clogging my arteries to help steer me away from such stuff.

It's difficult to change that mindset. For years, sugar was considered to be fairly harmless except for cavities. So, the notion that animal fat is fairly neutral compared to a high load of carbs is hard for even me to get my head around. But research is pretty clear that protein and fat is more satiating. And the data is also clear that insulin resistance is becoming an epidemic.

So, wish me luck. I'm having a cheeseburger for lunch. Hold the bun. Hold the fries. Hold the coke.

You won't need luck. I am way older than you, I have been eating lots of meat for many years, I eat meat or fish usually 3x a day and I am not dead yet.

Had a nice sirloin and eggs for breakfast this morning, after getting up at noon. Now I'll go out and have an espresso machiatto, full fat please, then walk over to the market and choose my poison for a cookout this evening. I do eat a sprig of parseley with my AM steak.

Ha

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Breakfast today was a slice of turkey ham (not too big, about 6 oz), a sauteed pepper from my garden, a couple of sliced garden tomatoes and a chunk of mango. After tennis tonight, while my buds are eating half priced burgers and fries, I'll have a cob salad with romaine instead of ice berg lettuce, plenty of veggies in it along with ham, tukey and a sliced hard-boiled egg. Twaddle, if you are going to have a lot of cheeseburgers w/o the bun, at least go for grass fed beef as its omega 3/6 profile is more like salmon than feed lot beef. BTW, anthropologists have discovered quite a bit regarding the paleo diet (Europe 20 to 40 thousand years ago) and are also certain of the robust bone structure and taller stature of those ancestors.

I had a bowl of mixed berries for breakfast (ran out of all-bran). Chicken wrapped in lettuce for lunch. Snacked on cheese and nuts.

I take a few grams of fish oil, but I'm not really convinced yet that omega-3's, anti-oxidants, and fiber really do that much for you. I'll keep reading while I chomp down some cheeseburgers, though....

I noticed that the "protein power" doc is now adding intermittent fasting to his spiel. Lots of people basically experimenting on themselves. We probably won't know the answers for another 50 years.

Twaddle, if you are going to have a lot of cheeseburgers w/o the bun, at least go for grass fed beef as its omega 3/6 profile is more like salmon than feed lot beef.

Or add some canola, olive, or flax oil after cooking...

I'm kinda with twaddle on this one. I'd guess early humans ate whatever they could find that wouldn't kill them. It's not like they could drive through Wendy's or Kroger's anytime they wanted... Try not eating for a few days. Think Donner Party, Andes plane crash, etc.

I'm kinda with twaddle on this one. I'd guess early humans ate whatever they could find that wouldn't kill them. It's not like they could drive through Wendy's or Kroger's anytime they wanted... Try not eating for a few days. Think Donner Party, Andes plane crash, etc.

So, I thought a little a bit about the changes in my diet. Nothing radical really. I basically dropped bread, tortillas, crackers and all other refined carbs. Also dropped starchy veggies like potatoes. And I added cheese as a snack.

Cheese! I formed a hypothesis that cheese was the culprit with my digestive problems, and so far dropping cheese looks like a winning solution!

Speaking of hypotheses, remember that Atkins dude? He died of heart disease and that made a lot of low-carb bashers snicker. So, the fine folks at Harvard said "we wonder if low-carb is associated with increased risk of heart disease." And they looked at the data they collected for the long-term nurses health study. I'm not a huge fan of observational studies, but here's the press release:

I went low carb last November after reading this article-http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=health&category =other.diseases.ailments&conitem=4a935e4e40fae010V gnVCM20000012281eac____
I have lost 50 lbs and my chronic heartburn completely disappeared. Try googling Gary Taubes article What if has been a big fat lie. It ran in the NY times Sunday section a while ago.

I went low carb last November after reading this article-http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=health&category =other.diseases.ailments&conitem=4a935e4e40fae010V gnVCM20000012281eac____
I have lost 50 lbs and my chronic heartburn completely disappeared. Try googling Gary Taubes article What if has been a big fat lie. It ran in the NY times Sunday section a while ago.

I've got Taubes book on order from Amazon and it should be released next week. He was a science major and is one of the best journalists reporting medical issues. I will provide a review of the book a week or so after I receive it. There is a measure of off-handed fluff floating through this thread. I'll probably start a new thread.

He fell on the ice in NYC and was unconscious in the hospital for sometime and died of these injuries. At the time of his death in the hospital his weight was about 10 lbs over his regular weight due to being on iv fluid/bloating- He was in his 70's and did not have heart disease.

He fell on the ice in NYC and was unconscious in the hospital for sometime and died of these injuries. At the time of his death in the hospital his weight was about 10 lbs over his regular weight due to being on iv fluid/bloating- He was in his 70's and did not have heart disease.

kitty

Thank you for quashing this ugly lie.

__________________"Knowin' no one nowhere's gonna miss us when we're gone..."

He fell on the ice in NYC and was unconscious in the hospital for sometime and died of these injuries. At the time of his death in the hospital his weight was about 10 lbs over his regular weight due to being on iv fluid/bloating- He was in his 70's and did not have heart disease.

Around 2000, Atkins started to develop a heart condition, cardiomyopathy, which he claimed was unrelated to his diet.[1][2] On April 18, 2002, Atkins suffered a cardiac arrest. He made a recovery and returned to work.

OK, so he had a heart condition and cardiac arrest a year before he fell on the ice. Glad we cleared that up.

This type of exchange foucsing on superficial ego points adds nothing to the discussion of an incredibly important and interesting topic.

You are right, and I did think about that a while after I posted, but didn't get back to edit or add to it. Now I am sorry that I didn't. I guess I just fell into a trap from the other comments that seemed to make something of it. Sorry.

For the record: Whether Atkins had heart disease or not is a sample of one and means nothing to the topic.

I do remember reading something from Taubes years ago, and my recollection of it was that he was really stretching with his observations, and used a lot of poor logic. But I need to refresh myself on the topic from the links provided.

From what I recall from reading Atkin's book years ago, was that I really felt he was showing one side of the story. It bothered me that he seemed on this anti-carb crusade, but never addressed the great health of the Okinowans, who ate a lot of (unrefined) carbohydrates and had a low fat diet. He also seemed to attack the modern 'low fat' diets, but I think the problem with those is people substituted refined carbs/sugars for the fat. But he seemed to want to just blame the 'low fat' part of it.

When I detect a lack of balance, it sends up flags, and I remember a lot of flags when I read Atkins, but it was years ago.

It also seems to me that everyone and his brother was talking up the low-carb diet a few years back. 'Hey, it's easy, I can eat all this steak and butter, it's great!'. So how come I still see so many fat people?

Again, I need to do some more reading to get up-to-date, but I really think there is something in the info that twaddle provided links to. The glycemic index seems to go a long way towards tying these refined/unrefined carbs ideas together. Animal/vegetable protein/fat may play an important role in it all also.

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